Mechanical Engineering

The Mechanical Engineering department is the largest department at Mines and continues to grow in student enrollment, faculty and research volume.

Mechanical Engineering by the numbers

1,364
undergraduate students

252
graduate students

39
faculty

$65,977
2018 average starting salary for BSME graduates

$11.9 million
awarded research in
fiscal year 2019

85%
undergrads who complete internships

140
companies, national labs and universities
that hire our grads

#21
in BSME degrees awarded (out of 267 schools)
reported by ASEE Engineering by the Numbers

Student Highlights

Bradley Jesteadt: “I was excited to be around so many people with the same interests and hobbies as me.”

Michael Byckovski: “My time here will prepare me to be the best possible engineer.”

Claire Teklitz: “The only thing cooler than building rockets is launching them.”

see more student highlights »

undergraduate program

graduate program

Faculty & Research Highlights

Dr. Garritt Tucker has been awarded a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Army Research Office for work designing a new class of multi-layered nanocomposites that exhibit unprecedented mechanical strength and toughness.

Mines wins Boeing-NSF award to engineer online learning. ME faculty Craig Brice and Jenifer Blacklock are on the project leadership team.

Dr. Joel Bach directs the Human Centered Design Studio, a two-semester capstone course at Mines focused on developing adaptive equipment for people (and sometimes animals) with disabilities.

Dr. Andrew Petruska won a $620K grant from the Alpha Foundation to use machine learning-enabled acoustic imaging to help first responders navigate underground mine emergencies.

Dr. Xiaoli Zhang is the lead researcher on a $1 million NSF project to create an AI-enabled tool for retraining workers in the metals industries.

The Alliance for the Development of Additive Processing Technologies, led by Dr. Aaron Stebner, is using 3D printing to help the U.S. Army CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center.